by Lou Gehrig Burnett, Publisher of Fax-Net As state legislators head to Baton Rouge for the session, which beginsApril 13, they face the daunting task of plugging a $1.6 billion shortfall in the state budget for the fiscal year which beginsJuly 1.

Is Governor Bobby Jindal wrongfully being blasted for the astounding $1.6 B looming budget deficit Louisiana is facing? Or is he and the State of Louisiana’s unfortunate mere victims to the cascading price of crude oil?

Do you hear that gnashing and grinding noise? You may have to be very quiet and cup your hand around your ear, but if you concentrate for just a moment, I bet you can hear it off in the distance. Take a moment and try it. Quiet your breathing and listen very closely...do you hear it?

Naturally, Republican conservative Gov. Bobby Jindal has faced a constant barrage from the liberals and their mainstream media handmaidens for the last dozen years (the latest such, exemplifying both valid points but selectivity, is here), and over the course of his governorship from the less ideologically principled political right as well. Yet more recently some principled conservatives have begun to criticize him, even if more on instrumental rather than on ideological grounds. It’s an outcome less a consequence of executional shortcomings and more concessions to the fundamental challenge his state stewardship has brought to its political culture.

Here’s how Gov. Bobby Jindal’s presidential campaign will probably end: he will finish sixth or seventh in the Iowa caucuses about this time next year. Almost broke, he will forgo the New Hampshire primary (that state allows crossover voting, so he stands little chance there).

Predictably, critics who call the closure of the emergency room for Baton Rouge General Medical Center a failure of public policy show the real failure comes in their unwillingness to grasp of the laws of economics, especially as it related to health care.

What should Louisiana citizens know about a $12 million real estate deal in Iberville Parish between the Louisiana Department of Economic Development (LED) and a Russian Oligarch involving a proposed fertilizer plant on property surrounding a Louisiana National Guard facility?

As if Louisiana needs any more financial wallops that could hurt its ability to fund governmental projects or that could hamper its economic growth. However, in a budgetary move that could hurt oil and gas industry and the State of Louisiana (which fought hard for revenue sharing of energy revenue) the Obama administration is favoring legislation that would drain Louisiana and three other Gulf states for redirect future oil and natural-gas drilling revenues.

The shift would boost "clean energy" industry efforts and hurt the oil and gas industry.

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